


Different Every Time

by fengirl88



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Other, Warning: briefly implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's listening to Late Junction because he can't sleep.  Hasn't slept properly since he got back from Afghanistan.  Hardly surprising, all things considered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Every Time

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for kalypso_v, whose icon inspired it, and whose birthday is the same as Robert Wyatt's. Thanks to blooms84 for the beta.

He's listening to Late Junction because he can't sleep. Hasn't slept properly since he got back from Afghanistan. Hardly surprising, all things considered.

He thinks about trying to write something for his blog, but there's nothing to say. “Nothing ever happens to me,” he'd told the therapist. Still true, and it's hardly likely to change. Except that soon he's going to have to leave London, because his money's running out fast.

The song catches him unawares, Robert Wyatt's melancholy voice and that haunting tune with its twists and turns and key changes. _You look different every time_...

It was Clara who'd introduced him to it. He'd heard Wyatt before, and you don't forget a voice like that. But all he knew of him was that version of Shipbuilding that Harry played over and over again as an act of teenage rebellion against their father, the Falklands, the Army and everything else. If anyone had told him in those days that he'd end up in the Army himself he'd have thought they were mad.

He remembers that last evening at Clara's flat before he went out to Afghanistan: Clara still trying to build bridges then between him and Harry, still hopeful something could be salvaged. That kind of stupid blinkered optimism you only get when you're madly in love. He couldn't grudge her that – God knows she'd had a short enough time to enjoy it – but the memory of it still makes him wince.

“This one always makes me think of Harry,” she'd said, and he'd wondered how she could make light of it, till he'd realized she couldn't know the extent of the problem.

 _joking apart, when you're drunk you're terrific  
when you're drunk I like you mostly late at night  
you're quite all right_.

He'd made an excuse and left early, but not before the song had got firmly stuck in his head.

Always assumed it'd be Clara who would leave Harry, that she wouldn't be able to cope with Harry's drinking when she found out how bad it really was. He's still trying to get his head round what actually happened.

"Keep in touch," Harry had said when she'd visited him in hospital, and he'd thought _Yeah, right_. She'd tried to kiss him goodbye but the smell of her skin made him flinch. He remembers the look on her face then, and he knows he hurt her, but he can't feel anything about it.

He'd ditch the phone if he could afford to waste money on another one, but right now every penny counts.

The song's finished and the presenter's saying something about it being Robert Wyatt's birthday. He looks at the clock: getting on for midnight. He probably ought to go to bed even though he knows he won't sleep for hours.

He lies down with the last lines of the song playing over and over in his head:

_your madness fits in nicely with my own, with my own  
your lunacy fits neatly with my own  
my very own_

_we're not alone_

He's never felt more alone in his life, but it's no good thinking about that. Have to make himself go for a walk tomorrow, even though the stick makes him wretchedly self-conscious. He's been cooped up for too long staring at these four walls and trying to ignore the gun in his desk drawer.

The digital display on the alarm clock clicks over to a line of zeros: it's tomorrow already. The 28th? – no, _29th_ of January. Not that it makes any difference when every day is the same as every other.

**Author's Note:**

> The song playing on the radio is Robert Wyatt's [Sea Song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vmncV7MgcQ&feature=related); the other song mentioned is Wyatt's recording of Elvis Costello's song [Shipbuilding](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxfVUnM9PWM).


End file.
